Digital Technologies in Amateur Handball Coaching

Topic

This thesis examines how digital technologies are used in amateur handball coaching, a setting that has received little attention compared with the professional and elite sport where most digital coaching research is concentrated. Through eleven semi-structured interviews with amateur handball coaches in German-speaking Switzerland, analyzed inductively, the study explores current practices, the challenges coaches face, and the conditions required for further digitalization. It asks how coaches use digital tools, how these tools shape coaching practice and decision-making, and what systemic preconditions would support development in a volunteer-run, resource-constrained environment.

Relevance

For the many volunteer coaches, clubs, and federations that run amateur sport with limited time and budgets, this thesis clarifies where digital technology genuinely helps and where it does not. It shows that the decisive lever is not more sophisticated tools for individual coaches, but collective action: curated, level-appropriate content, a federation that enables and coordinates rather than mandates, interoperable infrastructure, and accessible coach education. These insights give practitioners and tool developers concrete, evidence-based direction for investing scarce resources and advancing digitalization in a way that fits the amateur context.

Results

The study finds that digital technologies are well established and valued in amateur handball coaching, but coaches deliberately keep them at the edges of play—in preparation, video analysis, and feedback—while the live game stays analog. Adoption is shaped by three factors: limited volunteer time, fragmented and hard-to-use tools, and a deliberate judgment about what suits a team's level, age, and ambition. Crucially, further progress depends less on individual coaches than on collective conditions: shared, curated content, coordinated governance, and accessible infrastructure—areas where the sport is not yet organized.

Implications for practitioners

• Federations should act as enablers and curators rather than mandators—providing curated, level-sorted content and ready-made season plans, testing and licensing tools, and coordinating shared infrastructure and data access (potentially across the German-speaking region).
• Clubs should treat digitalization as a club-wide project rather than leaving it to individual coaches, starting where the value is clearest—training planning and periodization—rather than with analysis tools.
• Tool developers should prioritize integration, usability, and interoperability over feature depth, moving toward all-in-one solutions with portable data.
• Coaches should calibrate technology to their team's level, age, and ambition and focus it on preparation and reflection—recognizing that deliberate non-use can be a competent choice, not a deficit.
• Coach education should build the digital and organizational skills coaches need to select, structure, and apply tools effectively.

Methods

This qualitative study follows an inductive Gioia methodology. Eleven amateur handball coaches in German-speaking Switzerland were recruited through purposive sampling, with the national federation acting as gatekeeper and coaches self-selecting to participate. Semi-structured interviews were conducted in German via Microsoft Teams, recorded, and transcribed. Using MAXQDA and constant comparison, the analysis moved from open coding of 384 coded segments to 47 first-order concepts, 12 second-order themes, and four aggregate dimensions that address the three research questions. Representative quotations were translated into English. Methodological rigor followed Tracy's criteria; participants gave oral informed consent and were anonymized in line with Swiss data-protection law.